Oxford board asked to fund horse patrol

OXFORD – After two years of seeing the crowd-control advantages that a horse-mounted patrol unit has given the Oxford Police Department, city officials must consider whether to shoulder more of the cost.
Chief Mike Martin asked aldermen to include $77,500 in his department’s 2012-13 budget to build a barn, fencing and a training area on city land and for a horse trailer.
“The mounted patrol has worked out really well, but we’ve been operating from donations or out of the officers’ pockets,” he said.
Martin said a horse barn on reclaimed pasture at the city rubbish landfill site would halve the time for transporting horses from their current boarding site near the Panola County line.